Q. A person-centered health system seems to make perfect sense when it’s talked about at the water cooler, yet I sense there is a large chasm that exists between the goings ons in the health care system and the majority of patients in the U.S. How can we be sure that patients really want to be engaged with the health care system?
Not every “patient” wants to be engaged. That is the reality. Sometimes it is exactly those patients, though, that need to be engaged.
However, looking at the opportunity from a different perspective, the way to a better, healthier country is to engage people before they become patients. Witness the growth of wearable devices, connected to the Internet of Things. The FTC report forecasts 25 billion devices communicating over the network this year and 50 billion by 2020.
Further, assuming it is just a patient that wants to engage is another fallacy. Many of us have roles as caregivers, whether for spouses, children, or parents. Many of us live remotely from the person receiving care. Having access to be able to assist in understanding the care received, ensuring good communications with care providers, and being actively and proactively engaged is possible only through application of health information technology.
There are so many opportunities to improve the relationships between people (whether a patient, caregiver, or healthy individual) and clinicians (in hospital settings, offices, long-term care settings), and technology can help. Many physicians still seem to view patients coming in with externally garnered information (“Dr. Google”) as problematic, instead of as interested and engaged in their health.
The whole care delivery system is in the midst of transformation (even disruption), and embracing and adopting the change is a better approach than becoming obsolete.
Q. As a former board member, you obviously have a lot of interest in IHE’s activities. Where you surprised there was no mention or talk about IHE in the most recent JASON report? What role do you think IHE will play as HL7 FHIRprogresses?
The November 2014 JASON report did not reference IHE, but I don’t find that too surprising given the constituency of the advising body. As in many other circumstances, one approach may be favored by those in office at one time and less so by subsequent office holders. IHE references and use was quite prominent in the HITSP days, less so until recently. One may note that in the 2015 Interoperability Standards Advisory draft, IHE is mentioned multiple times, with XDR, XDS, PIX/PDQ, XCA, XCPD, CSD, and HPD all called out.
There are many technically savvy people (aka “geeks”) that work in and with both HL7 and IHE, and harmonization and collaboration between the two groups can only help the overall advancement of health information technology. Perhaps in my simplistic (? naive ?) way, I view the constructs as HL7 and others (SNOMED, LOINC, RXNORM) providing the “ingredients” to IHE’s recipe (e.g., IHE PCC’s APS, LDS for obstetrics) on utilizing in a meaningful way the constituent parts. Much as a cake recipe calls for sugar, eggs, and flour as ingredients, the “how much sugar,” “how to mix,” “how long to bake and at what temperature,” etc. define the end product (the cake). Many different cake recipes exist, just as many different use cases for health data exists….
Q. What do you hope the health care system will look like in 5 years?
In 5 years, I hope we are well on our way to the Learning Health System, with little or no thought required to get my health data into or out of any part of the care delivery system I am interacting with. I want to be able to take my personally derived data (from exercise on my bicycle or from monitoring my weight with my WiFi-connected scale) and have it available for those with whom I wish to share. I want to be in a health care system that is focused on wellness and general health as much as it has been focused on episodic care and illness.
The draft Interoperability Roadmap (open to public comment until April 3rd) provides the proper vision towards a Learning Health System that will achieve those goals. It may be an aggressive timeline to some. It certainly is reflective that ONC cannot carry the burden alone. Public, private, state, and federal cooperation and collaboration is essential to achieving success. Our nation’s health depends on it. I think it is the most worthy goal one could have as a health care professional. I certainly am proud to be associated with the dedicated and brilliant team here at ONC working to achieve the goal!
Special thanks to Peter Ashkenaz and Brett Coughlin from the ONC for their help facilitating this post.
